Truehearts & The Escape From Pirate Moon by Jake Macklem & Sean Alexander

Author:Jake Macklem & Sean Alexander [Macklem, Jake]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ampersand Books
Published: 2021-04-07T22:00:00+00:00

15: Cam

Cam lifted the front of his hat as Ace crawl across the raft to his pack. She pulled it open, exposing the large stash of precious metal in the main pouch “Hey, what are you doing!” Cam sat up. “That’s mine!”

“I know they’re yours. I’m just going to use them.” She grabbed the binoculars and looked northwest.

“Oh.” She doesn’t seem to care about the platinum and gold. “That’s the wrong way if you’re looking for land.” He smiled at his own wit, but when Ace did not respond he shifted and eyeballed the direction she was studying. The horizon was hazy, but it looked as if the clouds were coming from the water, not the sky. “What is that?”

“I don’t get it.” She handed him the binoculars.

Peering through the lenses, Cam watched the water roil, fog billowing in a swirling mass over the surface. It’s like the mist from a waterfall. He had never seen anything like it, and as he lowered the binoculars he said, “Huh.”

“What is it?”

“It looks like some sort of big wave of steam.” As the words settled over him, he remembered the huge channels carved in the mountain ridge. Bringing the binoculars up, he checked the mountains, the water was halfway up the erosion zone, churning and crashing against the stone. That puts the plain bottom one hundred and fifty meters below us. Turning to the wave, he realized it was getting closer very quickly. Already the waters beneath them were tossing their humble raft. “Oh damn,” he said.

“Colorful vernaculars?” Concern creased Ace’s face and she asked, “What is it, Shaw?”

“I think I just figured out what makes this moon flood.” He looked to the sky and then pointed at the mountain tops. “The sun heats the iron and it melts any ice that has formed at its poles, but the soil can’t absorb all the runoff. The water flows down to the lowest points on the moon.” He paused and looked at Ace. “Which are these plains. The haze is steam. The ice water runoff is mixing with the hot water from the lower lakes and rivers.” Cam looked around for someplace to pull the raft out of the water, but the mountains were still too far away. “Start stowing the gear and tie everything down, including yourself. This is gonna get bad.”

The duo worked together to take down the parachute they had set up for added shade. Five minutes later they had the raft secured and Ace leveled her gaze on the approaching steam. The roil of the wave came closer. “Start paddling!” Cam used his carved paddle and Ace used her spear, modified with a flat piece of bent metal as the fin. “The faster we’re going, the easier we’ll be swept up in the current.”

The oncoming rush of water sounded like thunder. Mugginess in the air came before the bouncing waves. The steam started to obscure their view of the mountains in the distance. As the cold water washed under them, the raft cooled in temperature.

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